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Judge in School Aid Case Earns Allies, and Ire

Leland DeGrasse sits on the bench with a poker face, unflappable. As lawyers wave their arms and sermonize, he stares at them impassively, not a smile, frown, wince or nod. In fact, he hardly says a word.

"There's no reason for a judge to lock himself into a corner by reacting," Justice DeGrasse said of his courtroom demeanor in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. "It's easy to have a gut decision, but a gut decision may not always be the right decision."

Justice DeGrasse has been at the center of a storm over New York City's public schools for more than a decade, and only Monday ruled that an additional $5.6 billion every year must be spent educating the city's 1.1 million students. But if the weight of the case or the broad political consequences of his decisions have ever rattled his cool, he has rarely shown it, not even in the privacy of his chambers.

"He's just as calm behind the scenes," said Peter H. Moulton, a Civil Court judge who clerked for Justice DeGrasse for about eight years and worked on the school finance case.

It is an ardor that has earned him both allies and ire. After declaring the voting lines for State Senate districts unconstitutional in 1992, Justice DeGrasse was denounced as a Democratic Party henchman. But when Republicans protested that they had not had the opportunity to mount a proper defense, he vacated his order to give them a chance to do so, an example of what his defenders call his dogged sense of fairness -- even though the outcome did not change.

His rulings have thrown obstacles in the paths of mayors from both parties. When Rudolph W. Giuliani tried to sell Queens Hospital Center in 1995, Justice DeGrasse blocked the plan. Before that, he took the city to task for ignoring the hazards of lead paint under Mayor Edward I. Koch, though some lawmakers argue that he is a decidedly partisan judge.

"I think there is a real political side to him," State Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Republican from Nassau County, said, adding that he considered Justice DeGrasse's latest ruling to be "judicial activism in its extreme."

From his beginnings as a city caseworker assisting poor families in the late 1960's, Justice DeGrasse kept coming back to public service after brief flirtations with the private sector. Throughout, he has been driven by a self-confidence that pushed him to become a lawyer and a judge, not because he had any money or political connections to speak of, but simply because "I felt my chance was as good as anyone else's."

Turns out, his was even better. Nervous though he was, Justice DeGrasse first put his name in the running to become a Civil Court judge from Harlem in 1985 -- and ended up having the election pretty much to himself.

"I was the only Democrat on the ticket. No one else ran" in the Democratic primary, he said, adding that his Republican opponent probably did not stand much of a chance of winning a seat in Harlem. "I was relieved, of course."

Leland George DeGrasse, 59, was born in New York City to a pair of native New Yorkers and a set of circumstances that he describes as "working class." His father was a postal clerk, his mother became a computer programmer. And though he has presided over the fate of the city's public schools since 1993, when the school financing case was first filed, he never attended them. His childhood was spent exclusively in Catholic school.

Nor was Justice DeGrasse a particularly scholarly youth. It was not until well after he graduated from St. John's University in 1967 with a major in Spanish that Justice DeGrasse said he truly started to focus on learning. He has since earned a reputation among his peers on the bench as a very studious, methodical jurist.

What he did have early on, he said, was a commitment to social justice, like many of his generation. As a caseworker for the city, he would visit poor families in their homes, always very aware that due to nothing more than "a different set of circumstances, I was the one making entries in a notebook and they were the ones being interviewed."

He liked helping people, but he did not like the pay. So he became a claims adjuster for State Farm Insurance, a job that put him in constant contact with lawyers. As he would at other times in his life, he told himself that if they could do it, so could he, then headed off to law school.

For all its storied civil rights history, Howard University did not propel Justice DeGrasse directly into a life of defending the underdog upon his graduation from its law school in 1972. He did represent the indigent for Harlem Legal Services, but he also prosecuted people as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx. He fought for tenants sometimes, but also dabbled in private practice, handling contracts and real estate work.

"I was searching," he said.

Finally, he began clerking for Clifford A. Scott, a State Supreme Court justice, in 1980, and the idea of becoming a judge began to take hold. Once it did, he pursued it with great ambition. Only three years into his 10-year term as a Civil Court judge, Justice DeGrasse ran for the State Supreme Court, a position promising the kind of broad powers he has now.

That time, though, the election was heavily contested within the Democratic Party. To secure a slot on the ballot, the usually shy Justice DeGrasse said he called "each and every" delegate who would be voting on his fate, 100 people or so. It worked. He was elected to his first 14-year term in 1988. He is now in the early years of his second.

During his tenure, Justice DeGrasse has grown somewhat accustomed to criticism, especially from those who say that neither he in particular nor the courts in general have the expertise to dictate how much money should be spent on the city's schools. Last year, The Daily News said the very idea that he might exercise control over school spending was "a nightmare scenario." The Post has been less kind.

At that, he finally chuckles a bit.

"Sure, it's good if you do something people like," said Justice DeGrasse, who is married to another State Supreme Court justice, Carol E. Huff. "But it's easier to make a decision that I believe is correct, regardless of the political implications. I would find it more difficult to formulate a decision based on popular opinion."